Difference between Data Scientist and Business Analyst

In today’s world where data is all around everyone relies on data professionals who can analyze and extract data to predict insights from the big data. Data Scientists and Business Analysts are the two main data professionals who deal with data to make informed decisions for organizations. They both handle data to predict insights, and their skills, approaches, and objectives may differ significantly.

In this article, we will explore the main difference between Data Scientists and Business analysts, the skills required, and the responsibilities of both roles.

What’s The Difference Between A Data Scientist And A Business Analyst?

Data Scientist

A Data Scientist is a person who designs, develops, and deploys algorithms through statistical programming to create a model by creating, analyzing, and interpreting data which will ultimately help in making the business more efficient. But they not only deal with data analysis rather they develop predictive models that use machine learning algorithms that support business-making tools, manage a large amount of data, and create a visualization to aid in understanding.

What are the skills of a Data Scientist?

• Object-oriented programming (OOP)
• Problem-solving
• Python, R, SAS
• SQL (Structured Query Language)
• Machine Learning algorithms
• Analysis data
• Data Visualization
• Communication Skills

Responsibilities of data scientist

• Data preprocessing
• Creating predictive models
• Formulating new test cases for business development
• Fine tuning the machine learning models
• Integrating and storing data.
• Applying Statistical modelling

Business Analyst

A business Analyst is a person who acts as a bridge between business and information technology groups within the business. Mainly they work with stakeholders across the organization to understand the need of business and design solution for it. Generally they research and extract important information from structured and unstructured sources and use this information in determining future business performance  and better solutions to business users.

What are the skills of a Business Analyst?

• Problem-solving
• Analytic thinking
• Interpretation
• Meeting with stakeholders
• Knowledge on visualization tools
• Information technology
• MS Excel
• Communication Skills

Responsibilities of business analyst

• Implementing technology solutions
• Establishing bridge between IT and Business Operations
• Optimizing systems and processes
• Communicating  with their stakeholders
• Determining the functioning of the project.
• Quantifying the scope of the businesses

Difference between Data Scientist and Business Analyst

DATA SCIENTIST	BUSINESS ANALYST
A data scientist analyzes, formats and extract data to predict insights from data .	A business analyst analyzes client and business requirement.
Generally a data scientist analyzes patterns in the data and make suitable decisions.	Generally a business analyst interacts with clients and project managers to analyze their needs.
Mostly they work only with structured data.	Where as a business analyst works with both structured and unstructured data.
They perform predictive and prescriptive analysis.	They perform retrospective and descriptive analysis.
They need to know Python, R, SAS, Spark, Tensorflow, Hadoop etc.	They need to know SQL, R, Tableau, and Excel etc.
They uses tools like data warehousing, data visualization and machine learning etc.	They uses tools like  Axure, Blueprint, Bit impulse etc.
Annual average salary of a data scientist is about $120K.	Annual average salary of business analyst is about $70K.
They use models like  schema on query.	They use models like schema on load.
Data scientists work on e-commerce, social media, finance, banking, IoT application industries.	Where as business analysts work is limited to businesses and consultancy services.

FAQs on Difference between Data Scientist and Business Analyst

Q1. Who earns more business analyst or data scientist?

Data scientist generally tends to have higher average salaries than business analysts. The average annual salary of data scientist is $120K. and the annual average salary of Buisness Analyst is $70K..

Q2.Is business analyst an IT job?

Buisness analyst is not an IT role, but it act as bridge between business stakeholders and the IT department. It plays a important role in translating and gathering information that helps in technical architect and developing solutions.

Q3.Is Data scientist better than analyst?

Both roles plays a important role in analyzing the data to get insights for the organizational development. Data Scientist performs predictive and prescriptive analysis while Buisness Analyst works on retrospective and descriptive analysis of the data .

Q4.Does business analyst do coding?

No, It’s not important to get knowledge of coding in business analyst role, but one should be clear with the basic fundamentals of the of how function, methods and development works.